Romantic Poets

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Romantic poets of this age:

Perhaps no single age produced so many great poets as did the romantic age-William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834),Lord George Gordon Byron (1788-1824),Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), and John Keats (1795-1821) whose works are counted among the world’s best writings.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Coleridge (1772-1834) was one of the most remarkable personalities of a remarkable movement. He had the one of the most brilliant minds of his age, and one which delved into all areas of human learning and experience. Coleridge’s poetry represents the culmination of romanticism in its purest form. The Ancient Mariner and Christabel mark the triumph of romanticism as fully as Wordsworth’s narrative poems mark the triumph of naturalism. It is by virtue of these poems that he has been called by Saints bury’’ the high priest of romanticism.’’
On the other hand, Coleridge was only intermittently successful in his poetry, and a comparatively small number of poems written by him have achieved lasting fame. Those which have are remarkable and unique. The Ancient Mariner, Kubla Khan and Christabel are Coleridge’s best poems.

Lord Byron

Byron(1788-1824) has arguably received rather less critical attention in recent years than some of the other poets covered here. He was the son of a wild and lawless family. He inherited his title unexpectedly, and was launched to instant public fame by the publication of Child Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812),a partly autobiographical long poem based on his European based on his European travels. Byron reputation is based on Child Harold’s Pilgrimage, Beppo (1817) The Vision of Judgment (1822) and Don Juan which began publication in 1819 and which was never finished. Don Juan is generally regarded as his greatest work.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Shelley (1792-1822) was the son of Sussex aristocrat. He was ‘sent down’ expelled from the University of Oxford for publishing a pamphlet advocating atheism. Out of all the Romantic poets Shelley has perhaps received the most interest from modern criticism. Shelley’s first major poem was Queen Mab (1813), and in it he displays many of the features that can be seen as typical of his poetry. Shelley was a revolutionary. She was obsessed by the manner in which society, institutions and conventional morality destroyed and corrupted mankind. A frequently quoted line, Power like a devastating pestilence Pollutes whatever it touches’, shows both the depth of his feeling and his loathing of conventional authority. Shelley had a strong belief in an absence of original sin, and that humanity could attain perfection. This, and his hatred of authority, she was a far more accurate and precise political and social thinker than was actually the case. Shelley’s ‘’Ode to the West Wind’’ is the great poem in modern literature.

William Wordsworth

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) is probably the most famous of the romantic poets, and may be the best. He was born in the Lake District of the United Kingdom, in what was then Cumberland; his love of the wild, mountainous English Lakes never left him and remained to the end of his life a major influence on all he wrote. He was greatly excited by the French Revolution (1789), seeing in it the chance for a whole new order in the world. When the French Revolution turned towards tyranny, and England declared war on France, Wordsworth suffered mental anguish that brought him near to collapse. His ideals were divided between England and France, the collapse of a revolution that had seemed so noble and liberal tormented him, and his child and its mother were beyond his reach in France.
Wordsworth suggests the truth of this idea. In his early years he wrote a significant amount of the poetry by which he is remembered, and although he lived until 1850 much best work was written by 1802 Wordsworth stated explicitly some of his poetic philosophy in the various prefaces to these lyrical Ballads (1798) which he wrote in company with Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The preface to the 1800 edition of Lyrical Ballads is essential reading for any student. A main plan of his philosophy was to move the language and the subject of poetry away from the clichés and stylized, elaborate fashion of the eighteenth century.

William Blake

William Blake (1757-1827), the greatest visionary poet in English literature. Blake was more a poet than an artist or painter and he was, furthermore, a poet after the tradition of Shakespeare and Chaucer with regard to the lyrical splendor of his works. His poetic career can be seen to have been facilitated by the linguistic medium he chose. He wrote many poems in his early age such as ‘The Lamb’,’ Nurse’s Song,’ The Chimney Sweeper, and ‘The Tyger, etc. He shows in the book’ Songs of Innocence and of Experience “the two contrary states of the Human Soul.

John Keats

Keats (1795-1821) belongs to the second generation of romantic poets. He is essentially a romantic poet despite his great love for Greek myths and literature. All romantic poets love beauty but romantic poetry imparts strangeness to beauty. This is the special contribution of romantic poets to the sphere of beauty. All the romantic poets had great love for nature. Keats also enjoyed the sensuous aspects of nature. He wrote many poems in his period there are-‘Ode to a Nightingale’,’ Ode on a Grecian Urn’,’ Ode to Autumn’ and ‘Ode on Melancholy ’etc.
Keats is a romantic poet because of his love of nature, of superstition, of fine phrase and music, of melancholy and middle ages, and of wonder and mystery. He is intensely subjective and emotional; he loves art for the sake of art. In his poetry, however, there is a balance between the formal perfection of the classics, and the emotion and imagination of the romantics. Keats was a true romantic poet. In fact, we find in Keats’s poetry the quintessence of romanticism.

The End

 
 
 

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                                              Elizabeth Browning

BROWNING, ELIZABETH BARRETT (1806-1861).--Poetess, and wife of Robert Browning. While still a child she showed her poetic gift, and her father published 50 copies of a juvenile epic, on the Battle of Marathon. At the age of 15 she fell off a horse, injuring her spine. This accident confined her to a recumbent position for several years, and she never fully recovered from the effects of this. Elizabeth would pass a lot of time writing poetry in a darkened room.

Her early volumes of poetry such as “The Seraphim and Other Poems” (1838) (including "Cowper's Grave.") and “The Cry of Children” received wide critical acclaim and she became one of the most respected female poets, she was even mentioned as a successor to Wordsworth as Poet Laureate.  In 1845 she met for the first time her future husband, Robert Browning Their courtship and marriage were carried out under somewhat peculiar and romantic circumstances. Her father Mr Barrett ruled his family with extraordinary control, forbidding any of his 12 children to marry. Therefore the couple had to marry in private and make a secret departure from her home to go and live in Italy. Her romance and marriage with Robert Browning helped Elizabeth tremendously, contributing to an improvement in her health.

In Italy the couple ran a guest house, where many writers and poets came at various stages. In 1851 she wrote one of her finest books “Casa Guidi Windows”, this was inspired by her support for Italian independence from Austria. In 1856 she wrote her longest and most popular collection of poems “Aurora Leigh”

She is generally considered one of England’s  greatest poetesses. Her works are thoughtful and delicate, but also offer profound ideas, especially on spiritual topics. Her own sufferings, combined with her moral and intellectual strength, made her the champion of the suffering and oppressed wherever she found them. (Elizabeth was an enthusiastic supporter of the anti slavery movement)

 

Elizabeth had a profound religious faith which infused her work, this religious orthodoxy and her seriousness may make her poetry unfashionable now. However she does have an engaging lyrical style Also her message of hope from a former invalid is a worthy inspiration. 

Elizabeth died in her husband’s arms in 1861

                                                    John Milton
 

Widely considered among the five greatest poets in the English language, John Milton was born and educated in London, the son of a musical composer. His early schooling took place at the St. Paul's School. From this prestigious beginning, Milton made his way to Cambridge, where he studied at Christ's College from which he took a BA in 1629 and an MA in 1632. While his studies were those of a future clergyman, Milton began early to read and write poetry in Latin, Italian, and English.


Upon his graduation, Milton returned to the home of his father where for several years he studied widely focusing on languages (Greek, Latin, and Italian) and theology, especially the early church fathers. During these years he also became more serious and capable in his poetic output. A dramatic masque Comus was performed in 1634 although not published (and then anonymously) in 1637.
Dating also to 1637, his great pastoral elegy, Lycidas, held by most critics to be among the greatest examples of that form, expresses his grief over the loss of a college friend, Edward King. In this work, the attentive reader can begin to discern the great Christian faith that lies at the heart of Milton the poet and which serves as the core of his most celebrated works. The end of Lycidas, especially, resounds with a powerful expression of faith in resurrection and redemption.


After the completion of Lycidas, Milton's poetic output slowed to a trickle for the next twenty years. From 1637 until 1639 he travelled in Europe, mostly in Italy. Upon his return, his attentions were consumed first by his employment as a tutor and later by the political turmoil of the English Civil War. In 1641 he began publishing pamphlets against the episcopal church and what he perceived as the unfinished English Reformation. Areopagitica, his famous defense of a free press, appeared in 1644.


During this period in which Milton's influence was growing, another force worked against him. During the mid-1640s, he began to notice the deterioration of his eyesight. This decay continued until he was completely blind in 1651.


After the execution of Charles I, Milton became involved in the Commonwealth government of Oliver Cromwell, serving as Latin secretary to the Council of State. He served faithfully in these duties through the period, publishing a number of political works as circumstances demanded. Upon the restoration of the monarchy, Milton was arrested, fined, and released.


It was during the period after his fall from public power that John Milton made his most celebrated contribution to English literature and Western culture. Although he had reputedly penned parts of his greatest work, Paradise Lost, as early as 1642, the epic's completion came no earlier than 1663. It was not published until 1667. Paradise Lost begins just after the revolt of Satan against God. It then follows Satan's actions against Adam and Eve, leading to the Fall. During the course of the work's ten books of blank verse, backstory, including a narrative of the battle between the loyal and rebellious angels, is provided. One common criticism of the work is that it creates in Satan too heroic a character.


Milton offered in Paradise Regained a sequel that provided much more hope. This shorter work deals with Christ's temptation in the wilderness. Milton's argument between the two is that while paradise was lost due to the failure of Adam and Eve to resist temptation, it was regained (partially) through Christ's successful resistance.
Having penned the works on which his reputation would rest, Milton finished his life with a few miscellaneous prose works, including a history of Britain and a discussion of the logic of Peter Ramus. He died of gout in 1674 and was buried next to his father in St. Giles Church, Cripplegate, London.